Hadestown (HIATUS)
by Nia Irial
Summary: The night is quiet. The town sleeps. No one hears the distant screaming blocked by dense trees. In the morning, when the blood is long washed away, a stirring begins-a missing teen. One of many; a beginning. No one but the killer knows who. Could it be you? SYOC: Submit your own original character.
1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Chapter One

* * *

The boy runs quickly, branches tearing and slapping at his skin, trying to slow him down. The forest turned against him; he knew he shouldn't have went inside. With a yelp, he falls, ankle caught on a gnarled root. It hurts, but he can't stop—behind him, the boy still hears it. The sound of breathing, of the cracking of twigs; the sound of someone drawing closer. The boy doesn't know who it is, but that feeling—the one of crawling terror, the intuition shouting run—tells him something is very, very wrong.

He pushes himself up, half stumbling and half running. His heart beats so fast. If only he could move just as swiftly. The darkness blinds him and he can barely see where the next twisted tree will be. He hears it still—heavy footfalls. His lungs burn badly, but just up ahead his saving grace awaits.

The road. He can see it. It's so close. So close. There's a loud snap just behind him.

The boy screams as pain tears into the back of his left leg. Something is there, embedded in the flesh above the bend of his knee, gouging deeply. He lands on his chest when he falls, and the force takes his breath away. He tries to move, hands grasping the dirt, debris splintering under his fingernails as he crawls forward one harrowing inch at a time. The footsteps are right behind him now, and through the terror he feels someone standing there, towering over him.

"Hey, Josh." They say, tone laced with mirth.

Josh knows that voice. He whips his head around as much as he can from the ground, neck straining unnaturally.

"Y-you?"

"Relax buddy. This will only hurt for a minute."

Out on the road, a deer bounds away, startled by the sudden ear-splitting screams.

* * *

Hi there, and welcome to my SYOC (Submit Your Own/Original Character). I hope I didn't scare you away with my little intro; after all, the fun has only just begun. As you can probably tell, this is going to be a murder mystery type thing, a whodunit and whydunit.

Our setting is Oakville (or, as it will later be dubbed by the residents, Hadestown), a southern gothic place where crime is typically unheard of. That is until now. Why, you ask? Well, you're just going to have to make a character and send them in to find out.

I have two of my own characters in this, twins Blaine and Raea Haden. Don't worry—they're not safe from being killed either. If you want to know what they look like, their face-claims are Lucky Blue Smith and his real life sister Pyper America Smith. Their ages in the story are 17.

Here's de grand form for submission, which is to be sent via PM only. Oh, yeah—please label the PM as Your Character's Name: Hadestown

 _ **Name: (full name please)**_

 _ **Nickname(s): (if any)**_

 _ **Gender:**_

 _ **Age: (youngest is 15, oldest is 20)**_

 _ **Appearance: (description really pays off here, you know)**_

 _ **Face-claim: (they don't have to be identical, just pretty similar)**_

 _ **Signature clothing style:**_

 _ **Extra appearance stuff: (tattoos, make-up, piercings, scars, etc.)**_

 _ **Personality: (Be fairly through)**_

 _ **Sexuality:**_

 _ **Turn ons in romantic partners: (physical and mental)**_

 _ **Turn offs in romantic partners: (physical and mental)**_

 _ **Family: (name, age, job, relationship with character, and brief appearance)**_

 _ **Economic standing: (poor, middle-class, rich, etc.)**_

 _ **Are they in high school, college, or neither?**_

 _ **Grade:**_

 _ **Hobbies:**_

 _ **Quotes they would say:**_

 _ **If they work, where and what do they do?**_

 _ **What kind of student/worker are they? (lazy, driven, ambitious, slacker, etc.)**_

 _ **Can they drive? If so, what kind of vehicle do they own?**_

 _ **What do they think about the murders?**_

 _ **What or who would they kill for?**_

 _ **Will you, as a reader and the creator of your character, review and answer messages?**_

 _ **Warning: I might make your character the murderer and/or kill them—are you okay with this?**_


	2. The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Chapter two

* * *

He was dreaming. It was a nightmare. There was a pitch black room where the walls slithered with morphing faces, each of them saying something different. He couldn't make any of it out, even though it was loud enough to hurt his ears. In the middle of the room, someone was kneeling, their shoulders shaking with barely controlled spasms. Somehow, the weirdest thing was the cold—temperature shouldn't matter in dreams. Suddenly, he was the one on the floor, something hard pressed against his throat. The figure—the shaking thing—stood above him; it smiled.

 _This'll only hurt for a minute,_ it hissed.

Then there was pain, ricocheting across the back of his skull.

He awoke cold and sweaty, lying on his back on the floor, blankets tangled around his legs. His head was throbbing, and he rubbed at it, wincing as he correctly assumed he'd fallen from bed. The faces from his dream still lingered behind his eyelids, his heart still elevated from the fear.

"Just a dream," he mumbled, kicking the sheet away from him and standing. He blinked lazily, tossing the wadded material back onto the bed. Just then, movement off to the side caught his eye. Immediately he froze, remembering his sketchy nightmare in full detail. He turned to the large double window, comforting himself with the hopeful thought nothing would be there peeking in. His heart nearly burst from his chest when he saw two pairs of eyes looking back at him instead. Next there was a hand; it tapped on the glass slowly. Then, to his relief, a face—one he recognized.

He hurried to the windows, yanking them open. Next time, though, he'd remember to lock them before bed.

"Shit, you scared me," he said as he let them inside, pushing down his earlier fear, and now, annoyance.

The twins slipped through, their white blond hair glinting in the partial moonlight. They both wore idiotic grins. "You know you love us, Jax." Raea teased.

"Not if you keep breaking into my house. It's," he stopped to squint at the digital clock on his nightstand, "3 fucking 40 in the morning—what do you want?"

"Who's breaking in? Window wasn't even locked," Blaine said, eyes dancing about the room, hands stuffed into his pockets.

Raea's gaze slid up and down Jax's bare torso. "We're going for a walk—you should put on a shirt first. It's chilly."

"More like fucking freezing; I hate the cold," Blaine mumbled, shrinking farther into his jacket for emphasis.

"Sure," Jax said, grabbing a soft hoodie off his cluttered floor and slipping it over his head, "Who needs sleep anyway."

After they'd shimmed out the window and off the roof, the three began their pointless trek into the amazing Oakville neighborhood (sarcasm should be noted). They walked down the side of the road, talking a lot about nothing. Jax began to think Blaine was very high; he kept insisting they should go to the movie theatre and watch Planet of the Apes.

They came to edge of the woods, passing the town's last streetlamp. "What is your obsession with that movie?" Raea demanded, tone exasperated and amused.

Blaine held out an arm, gesturing at nothing. "They're monkeys—fucking monkeys—and they're tryin' to take over the world. It's funny." He nearly hit Jax in the face, still flailing; he suddenly halted, expression becoming serious. "Wait. It's not really. It's kinda scary." He began walking again, entering the forest, maneuvering around trees and stumps. "That's weird shit. I bet that's gonna happen. We all think it's gonna be bombs, but it's gonna be the fucking monkeys."

Jax laughed. "What are you on man?"

Raea grabbed his arm, shooting Jax a warning look. "Don't bring it up," she whispered, "He'll just say he's not."

As if on cue, the other twin whirled around from where he stood on a slightly elevated broken branch. He wobbled precariously. "I'm not high! Quit accusing me of shit I'm not doing." He fell from the branch, landing on his ass with a hard thump. He looked stunned for a moment. Both Jax and Raea bent down and took an arm, pulling the platinum haired boy up from the ground.

Blaine began laughing then, whole body quaking with the force of it. He started to sag again, so Jax had to support most of his weight. Jax frowned, his friend's antics quickly jumping from amusing to annoying. Turning to Raea as much as the positon would allow, he asked, "Should I just go get my car and drive you two home?"

Just as she nodded, Blaine shouted an overly dramatic "No!" and squirmed out of Jax's hold. "I gotta piss." He said, trotting deeper into the woods. He laughed once more, sound becoming distorted by the distance. "You guys can just, uh, have sex or something while you wait."

"Blaine—behave yourself!" Raea yelled after him in mild chastisement, but he'd already disappeared from view. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," she said, turning to Jax.

He grinned, "I'm pretty sure I know a group of Haitian human traffickers. You want their number?"

"Not yet," she said, laughing, "But maybe in the future, if he gets any worse." Her smile changed into grimace.

"Do you know what he's been taking?"

Her entire face darkened. "Probably a little bit of everything. He won't talk about it."  
"And I thought he only had a drinking problem," Jax commented dryly.

"I wish," she said sadly.

A loud scream split the relative silence. Raea's eyes went wide, "That's Blaine." Then she ran off.

Jax sprinted after her, heart rate escalating steadily. Once again, the dream—the stupid nightmare—leaked back into his brain. He quickly caught up with Raea and very nearly ran into her when she stopped-short. She looked at something on the ground, expression petrified.

Blaine, his bright white hair covered in blood, sat in, what looked to be, a severely mutilated dead body. He stared at his hands, also covered in blood.

He looked up at them. "Get-get me out this."

Shakily, they helped him clamber up, barely moving away in time when he heaved his stomach contents onto the forest floor. Jax couldn't take his eyes off the body, or rather what was left of it. The skull was still there, beaten terribly where the face was unrecognizable, but after that things got messy. Where the stomach should be there was a torn and twisted pile of guts and blood. The legs, still there, were cut open deeply at the thighs, battered cloth saturated with red still clinging around them. The corpse was also wearing shoes, crisp white converse save for the spattered crimson.

"Take me home," Blaine mumbled, still clutching his stomach. "Take me home," he said, much louder this time, bordering on a shout.

Raea went to him. "I will. Let's get out of here."

Jax finally managed to drag his gaze away from the carnage. "Wait. We have to call the cops." His voice was surprisingly calm.

"My brother is pumped full of drugs," Raea said incredulously, "He'll get arrested."

"Not really what's important right now. They'll be more concerned with the dead body."

She sighed. "Fine. You call."

Jax pulled his phone out of his shorts pocket. With steady fingers, he dialed the number. The dispatcher picked up immediately.

"911. What is your emergency?"  
"We found a dead body," Jax blurted.

There wasn't even a pause. "Okay. What is your name?"  
"Ajax Sterling."

"Where are you at, Ajax?"  
"In the woods, right next to Bram Street."  
"Are you alone?"

"No, my friends are here."

"Are any of you hurt or in danger?"

"No, we're fine."

"Okay Ajax, I'm sending a unit your way. Would you like me to stay on the line with you?"

"No, it's fine. I'm fine."

"Stay where you are. Help is on the way." She hung up, call clicking to an end. Jax slowly put his phone away. He had the crazy thought that maybe he was still asleep in his room, and this was just the second part to the nightmare.

Blaine had the hood of his jacket flipped up, covering his now dirty hair. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. "Probably the damn monkeys."

Jax was angry suddenly. He turned to Raea. "Does he even know what's happening?"  
"Don't take the tone of voice with me." She said, huffing, "I didn't even want to stay." She glanced around with suspicion. "Whoever did this is probably still out here."

Jax hadn't thought about that, but now, the darkened crevices and freaky shadows of the woods seemed a lot more intimidating. The sound of a car pulling up nearby nearly made him jump out of his skin.

He and Raea looked at each other, eyes wide. "It's probably just the cops," he offered.

Footsteps came next, crunching leaves and sticks. Blaine fidgeted. "Wouldn't they have sirens or something?"

"Maybe they didn't need them because no one is out at night." Raea said.

Jax swallowed, the night air making his throat slightly sore. "I'll go check. Just stay here."

"You better come back," Raea warned.

As quietly as he could, Jax slinked around trees, trying to avoid the snappiest of the twigs. When he was close enough to the road, he peered around a thick oak, placing his hands on the rough bark. He squinted into the dark, seeing nothing. Then, parked half into the woods, parked half on the side of the road, Jax could make out a black truck. He didn't see any driver, and that made him nervous.

He sprinted back to the twins, relieved to see them still standing there next to the body. "Not the cops," he said.

Raea looked scared. "Then who is it?"  
"I don't know—someone who drives a black truck."

Blaine suddenly jumped, peeking behind him into the dark foliage.

"What?" Jax demanded, voice alarmed.

"A song."

"What song?"  
Blaine still looked dazed. "Dunno."

Raea looked stricken. "Listen."

They all listened, and over the sound of night bugs and the breeze, a quiet almost humming sound could be heard.

"What is that noise?" she asked.

Then they heard a much louder snap. That was all it took to get them running in the opposite direction. They ran until they reached the end of Bram Street that went back into town. It was Brigham Lane, the gated community where they all lived. Jax boosted Raea up onto the tall stone fence, then Blaine. The twins helped him scramble up. The jump to the ground on the other side sent a jolt of pain through his ankle, but Jax shook it off.

"So much for waiting for the cops," He said, blood rushing in his ears even now.

"I'd rather run than be killed by a psychopath," Raea rasped, out of breath.

"We have to go to the station tomorrow." Jax glared at Blaine pointedly, "Have your shit together by then."

"Yeah. Sure. Shit together." Then he threw up in the fountain they were standing next to. His retching noises were loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood.

"I kinda want to throw up too," Raea whispered, "That was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. Just think—someone who lives in our town did that. What if we know the dead person? It could be anyone."

Jax felt goosebumps prickle up his arms. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to chase away the violent imagery. "I don't know. I don't know anything. Can you get home?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Can you?"

"Yeah."

They stood there, cloaked in silence except for the trickling fountain. Raea yanked Blaine up by the arm. "Night, Jax."

He didn't reply, just began the walk back to his house, which luckily wasn't far. He felt completely exhausted, but he doubted he'd be able to go back to sleep. Every corner seemed frightening now, so he kept close to the streetlights. All he had to do was make it to morning. He'd go to the police station and explain why they ran off. They'd investigate and eventually catch the crazy person who left the body in the woods. Nothing could go on in Oakville for long, not even murder.

 _It'll only hurt for a minute._


End file.
